— Matt Hardy recently sat down with Mike Johnson of pwinsider.com where he talked about a number of topics, including his departure from WWE and all the different ideas he pitched to Vince McMahon and others. Here are some excerpts:
On his current status in wrestling & “Free the Delete” ideas
“Yes, I am a solo free agent. I do not have any kind of contractual obligations to anyone. I’m still playing the field, as they say. And you are right. If you watch Free The Delete earlier episodes, if you watch episode four there’s a point where I take it the call and this is future or two others. I had three different endings for Free The Delete, depending on where I ended up, and it was initially written to end up in WWE, so more or less there was one wildcard but it was going to be Bray Wyatt or the Young Bucks end up on Free The Delete when it was all said and done. There were three options originally.
There was an idea, it was a big idea that I gave to Vince and the WWE creative guys. I don’t know if it got pulled off. But it’s also a guy who is very well known for digging graves and burying souls. It would have been super cool if we’d been able to incorporate it, but that was the other idea and that might’ve been being a little too optimistic in what I could have got out of it.”
On the rumors of him going to NXT
“It was kind of like a dual role. It was to maybe do something in NXT and be Broken Matt and maybe have some sort of stable there and help some guys. But still my whole big thing was like for these last three or four years that I have left to do this, I want to be involved in a prominent role. I don’t want to be the champion. I don’t want to be undefeated. I want to help people along the way, but I still want to be utilized in a prominent way. I think Hunter had a vision of making that happen. There was a talk of doing that and starting in a backstage role as a Producer, maybe even do some stuff creatively. It would kind of be like a double role and I’d make a little more money. And that was the mindset behind that. It was kind of like, I really, I appreciate Hunter because I think triple H was really trying hard to keep me there. And really I didn’t want to leave WWE. I wanted to stay with WWE. But if they didn’t have something for me creatively that I could do in the next three or four years, it was very important to me just because I love it so much that I’m maximizing it the most of them the last few years.”
If WWE ever “got” the Broken Matt Hardy character
“No, I don’t think they got the character all the way. I think the creative guys do. People say, ‘Oh, creative should have done better,’ but at the end of the day, it’s not up to them. I mean, you say it all the time Mike. I mean, Vince is like the one. I mean, if he wants something done, it’s happening. If he doesn’t want something done, it isn’t happening. The Halloween special, I and JB and Dan Pucciarello from WWE Network did that all together. So literally I had creative control in that. And those specials….what was sad in many ways, in January ,I just got the word from them that they greenlit two more House Hardy specials because the first one did very well.”
On the brief program with Randy Orton
“They were still actively working to sign me and figure out something to do going forward. And it was just, I mean it was hard and I wasn’t even set if I was going to stay there that I had to do Broken Matt because during the time that Jeff was gone for the last 10 or 11 months, I mean I submitted so many different ideas that I thought were great things. For instance, when I did that, I’d given them, because they have so much content, three hours of Raw, two hours of Smackdown. I even suggested on one of the shows, I said, ‘Could we have something for 15 minutes?’ I wanted to come out. I wanted to address the Authority when they did the things that they were going to listen to the fans, however long it was, like a little over a year ago. Right?
My idea was like, I come out and I say, ‘I want to address these guys. I want to dialogue with you.’ And I was going to say like, they were going to say like, ‘What do you want? Do you want your release? Do you want to get fired? Whatever?’ No, I want to stay the show because I feel like you guys are going back on your word some with what you’re telling the people. You’re not listening to them. I just want 15 minutes. Give me 15 minutes of the show and I want to make a segment called The Broken Block. I want to take guys like Ali, Apollo, Chad Gable, guys who are underutilized, use them, let them have bad ass matches and then throw a little bit of Broken Matt in there as well and actually be gone away for a while and come back as Broken Matt. I had a whole storyline about how to do that and just different things like that. I didn’t want to be the champion. I want to do things that I could do to help other guys and do a little role. I feel like too, a little variety would help the show as well. So much content.”
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